Face all of crag
Lined out in youth
And smoothed where Time thinks best.
Parenthetical mouth.
Asterisk-ine blush spreads
Where Doubt lingers.
Question marks pronounced
Exquisitely through lips.
Like a tactile symphony,
No harsh chord exists.
Not in the lines of the face
Though it looks as if its
Planes were imported from disparate periods.
From a Baroque cheek
To a Tudor brow
And a smirk that even James would be
Hard-pressed to translate.
To my initial A. Long may he reign;
For I feel in truth whatever he may feign.